"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.."

SO! We are pregnant. We are thrilled, surprised and scared . Apologies to any friends or family that were bummed to not hear it from us first. We still love you, we were trying to not get too ahead of ourselves and wanted to make sure everything was A-OK.

Now that we've pulled a Quentin Tarantino on y'all (showed you the end before the beginning) I'll rewind and fill you in on our journey to this point. 

Last November was my first of many doctor's visits. At first, I had a Vitamin D deficiency, no big deal. April came and still no change, so I was poked and examined further and I was diagnosed with PCOS, Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. Among many things, it meant for me that my pancreas couldn't regulate itself, which produced an excess of the male hormone Androgen, this in turn made my ovaries "lazy" and kept me from ovulating. Apparently, I have had this for quite some time, but only recently has there been a name put on symptoms that have followed me for half of my life. The game plan was to put me on a high dose of Metformin (a diabetic medication that was meant to help regulate my insulin and glucose levels, lose some stubborn weight...and hopefully balance my hormones.) When that failed to regulate my body, I was put on Clomid, which was meant to make me ovulate. This only worked the first month I took it. After a couple of months of frustration, we stopped the Clomid and accepted that there were other things we needed to focus on, like completing our college educations. After we were accepted to Utah State, we moved to Logan to start out fresh. 

Although we stopped taking Clomid, it didn't stop my ache for children. I have always loved them and knew I wanted to have a large family.  It became extremely frustrating to not have the thing you want most. This frustration was followed by anger, then depression. I began to see myself as less of a person. When seeing babies and small children in church or public, I would become angry and irritable. I started taking out my anger on my husband. I didn't understand. How does this make sense? Why am I not able to do my main function in life? As a woman? Yes, I know I can have a fulfilling career, travel or be a really great party hostess, but I didn't want just that. I want children. I want to be a mother. I feel there is no higher calling or more respectable a job. And, yes, I already understand it is a job. 

We had been off of Clomid for 4 months when I first thought about taking a pregnancy test.  I'm used to being irregular, and I had few extra pregnancy tests stashed away from the many ovulation kits I've had to buy. I woke up on November 12th, thinking that if I took a test, got a negative result, that my stress level would go down and I'd start soon after that. So I peed on that little stick and set it aside, not really thinking twice. When I finally checked the result window, my sleepy eyes widened considerably and I did a triple take that nearly broke my neck. 

Yep, knocked up.

I spent all day trying to think of a cute way to share the surprise with Spouse, but none seemed quite right for us. That night, we were on the couch watching TV and Caleb joked that "maybe" I was pregnant. The words fell out of my mouth before I could keep them in, and I even managed to squeeze out a little tear or two.  At first, he was shocked, and so I led him to the bathroom where I had stashed two positive pregnancy tests. Then his eyes got really big and we hugged. It was perfect and very "us".

The next day we told our mothers, who both cried, as expected, with a little help from Pongo...who seemed as equally excited. 

Pongo did an excellent job as our announcer. He is really excited.

Today's appointment went incredibly well and was full of nice nurses telling us "Congratulations!" We were asked a LOT of questions and filled out lots of paperwork. One of my all-time favorite moments of my life came when the ultrasound started.  Dr. Smith put that little goo-covered thing on my belly and there on the screen was our little peanut.  At first, all I saw was a blob inside of another blob, but then she pointed out how wiggly our peanut was.  She zoomed in and that little bean wouldn't sit still. Just dancing around, letting us know that he or she was there and doing perfectly well. "Holy cow! That's a baby!" was all I could say. Then we heard the heartbeat, which was really fast and strong. That's when s**t got real. And cool. And exciting. And nerve-racking. Lots of emotions, that I'm sure you veteran parents are well aware of.  

Little peanut is laying on their side, facing towards you. If you look closely, you can see a tiny face and little arms and legs. The arrow is pointing to an arm. Isn't that the prettiest baby you've ever seen?!

The past couple of months have seen us go from being all about school and work, to looking for and finding a bigger place, numerous school and financial hurdles, to adding onto our little family. By far, the biggest surprise and blessing of our lives. Christmas certainly came early at our house. And never before have John Lennon's words rang more true with me: "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans..." for that's exactly the path that our lives are now on.